BUCHTEL, Ohio — A new trailhead for the Baileys Trail System is under construction in Buchtel and will likely open this summer.
“The trailhead at this location will provide essentially the quickest access to the advanced-level trails that we have on the system,” Outdoor Recreation Council of Appalachia Executive Director Jessie Powers told the Independent.
The trailhead at the intersection of SR 685 and SR 78, and will feature a restroom, shelter house, and parking lot “at a minimum,” Powers said.
ORCA is currently working to connect the trailhead to the Baileys Trail System by way of a new trail that passes through the Snowfork Events Center. The center hosts various events including the Nelsonville Music Festival and, for the first time this year, the Ohio Pawpaw Festival.
The connector trail is awaiting a prefabricated bridge that is expected to arrive in May, Powers said. The Butchel trailhead could open the same month, though Powers said it could take until more like June or July.
The Village of Buchtel owns the trailhead property, which Powers said the Jay and Miki Brooks family donated for the trailhead. Miki Brooks was not available to comment for this story.
Impact for Buchtel
Jay Kline, a Buchtel Village Council member who sits on the ORCA board, told the Independent he hopes the trailhead and surrounding trails will attract significant financial investment in development in the village, while providing a local community asset.
“When this was nothing more than an idea, I went around and I told people, ‘Hey, this, this could be the biggest thing here in this area since they discovered coal,’ Kline said. “We’ve always had our land here, and then other places came in and they took the minerals out of the land. … Well, we’ve got our land still. It’s still there, and we’re trying to still capitalize off of that.”
Kline said he would like to see new local businesses emerge as traffic increases through the village, such as a restaurant and convenience store.
The village is working to secure grant funding to construct sidewalks and curbs along SR 78, which would allow Nelsonville-York students to walk from the school complex to the trailhead.
Kline hopes the trailhead can serve as “an active learning center for our students here at Nelsonville-York.”
“There’s a lot of educational benefits that we were going to be exploring once the trailhead is complete,” Kline said.
Powers said ORCA is excited about the trailhead’s proximity to the Nelsonville-York school complex.
“We’re really excited about that, as well as what that means for this community that is absolutely a historic coal mining community that probably hasn’t seen this level of development – like the other communities – in a really long time,” Powers said.
Final touches on a decades-long vision
The connector trail to the Butchel trailhead is one of the last remaining portions of the Baileys Trail System under construction, Powers said. One additional connector trail will be built in Chauncey, with improvements planned for several other trails.
When the trail system opens to mountain bikers this spring, the vast majority of the trail system will be open, including some trails, like those off SR 685, that will open for the first time. Those trails will be easily accessible via the Butchel trailhead when it opens.
Powers said ORCA will hold a grand opening for the completed Baileys Trail System this summer.
The trail system, initially conceptualized in 1993, has been under development since 2016, according to ORCA’s website.
